Mourning the Living
by bellatrix-la-dumb
Summary: Sam hasn't been the same since he got his soul back. That is to be expected, of course. Going through decades of torture from the cloven-hooved demon himself and then suddenly going topside would be a roller coaster for anyone. But Sam... Sam is not okay. Basically what I would have done with the "Sam is crazy" story line in season 7.


**Hello! I'm back! Now, I know I said I would update my other spn story, but I have been** **writing this one for a while, and I finally finished it. It didn't come out exactly the way I wanted it to, but I still feel like this story is complete enough. But this is basically how I would have made season 7 play out with Sam's story line, because I really just don't like the way they did it. It isn't very in depth, but I just wanted to go over all the main points, so sorry if it is kind of vague. But, anyways, I hope you like it!**

 **Warnings: Pretty much everything. This is a pretty heavy story, so be cautious.**

Sam hasn't been the same since he got his soul back.

That is to be expected, of course. Going through decades of torture from the cloven-hooved demon himself and then suddenly going topside would be a roller coaster for anyone.

But Sam... Sam is not okay.

The wall is long gone. It crumbled to dust along with the world when Cas became god. And now he is gone. He can't fix Sammy with a touch to the forehead like always. But it's not like he could fix someone so broken anyways.

Sam doesn't talk, not to Dean, anyway. He tries to keep his Lucifer thing under wraps when Dean is around, but sometimes, late at night, he is awoken by Sam's mumbling. If he holds his breath, he can hear him, begging, _pleading_ , for Lucifer to leave him alone, to let him sleep.

Often, Dean catches him glancing over at an empty chair, or uninhabited spaces, quickly looking away and distracting himself anxiously, only to look back again a moment later. It always sends a chill down Dean's spine, knowing that his brother is seeing something he doesn't see, can hear something he doesn't hear. He wonders what he is saying to him, how terrible the words could be that they leave him with tears in his eyes as Dean pretends not to notice.

Sam is always fidgeting, rubbing at the scar on his hand, picking at his clothes hems, pulling at his hair. Anything to distract himself. It devastates Dean to see him like that, remembering how his brother was so smart, so focused, so much better than himself in every way, until Lucifer poisoned his mind.

He can't remember the last time he saw him eat.

Before he got his soul back, before he went through hell, even.

Sam was almost skin and bones, at least by hunter standards. Hunters weren't the healthiest people, but they knew that a good meal meant for good hunting. You couldn't stay fit to go on a week's empty stomach. Sam obviously didn't care much about that, though. Dean couldn't even force some of his stupid rabbit food health guru stuff down his throat. He always just stared at his food, not even attempting to pick at it before getting up and leaving, to take refuge in the car or his lumpy motel bed. Dean didn't worry much-he had much bigger things on his plate-until one day, Sam had stepped out of the bathroom after a shower to grab a shirt, and Dean had been able to count all his ribs.

On his good days, Sam would go on hunts with him. Play his part as an FBI agent, research vics and lore, help gank whatever S.O.B. they were after. Go through the motions. Like he was an actor, stepping in for the part of Sam Winchester, but only knew one scene. He didn't do anything else. He was a robot, wearing his brother's skin.

But Dean liked that Sam much better than the one that presented itself on his bad days. Some would start out fine, the routine hunt or long car drive, but would eventually dissolve into madness, leaving Sam muttering things under his breath while Dean was interviewing families of vics, leaving the people confused and worried as Sam would slam his hands over his ears, as if trying to squeeze the sides of his skull together. This happened too many times to count, investigations being interrupted by people questioning why Sam was twitching, or why he all of a sudden had started screaming. Once he even punched a store owner in the face, even though he had been completely fine just a moment before. Luckily, they weren't dressed as FBI, so the man didn't file some kind of report complaining about their choice of agents, and Dean stopped the man from calling the police on them by telling that his brother wasn't exactly right in the head, which wasn't completely wrong, as Sam, after punching the man, had silently slipped down to the floor in the midst of all the chaos, and was then rocking back and forth against the counter with his arms wrapped around his knees, whispering what seemed to be the alphabet song quietly to himself. That was convincing enough for the man, giving Dean as sad look, apologizing profusely, and even helping drag a reliquent Sam back to the car. Dean didn't let him leave the motel for a week after that.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg. At first, Sam was okay. A little off, but easy enough to handle. Dean had thought that hallucinations and weird visions were the extent of Sam's trauma. But as the months went on, he got worse. Worse than he could have ever imagined.

It started off with the whispering. Every so often, Sam would get a little edgy, a little too anxious. Dean would sometimes hear him go silent, only to look over and see him completely spaced out, mouthing something, his breaths barely making their way past his lips. It wasn't until Dean listened closely that he realized they were nursery rhymes, kid's songs. Like "Mary had a Little Lamb", or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". When the older Winchester questioned him about it, he said it was a coping mechanism, something to calm him down. So, Dean let him do it, sometimes teasing him about his choice of songs, but never stopped him. Until he started doing it in public. Normally, Dean didn't care what people thought, but when your brother, a very tall, but very normal looking grown man starts singing fairy princess bullshit in the line at the McDonalds, you have to step in and do something. He couldn't stand the way people turned around to stare at him, raise an eyebrow like he was some kind of escaped mental patient that didn't belong in the real world. Sometimes Dean would get defensive, staring the onlookers down until they shied away. Sometimes he would get angry, angry at Sam for embarrassing him, shaking his shoulder to make him stop, or making him go sit down at a table or go back to the car. Sometimes he wished he could look at Sam the same way the others did, annoyed and disgusted, blend in with the crowd, act like he didn't know him. But he decided to just start going through drive-thu instead.

But Dean got used to it. He lived with Sam's tortured mind, taking things day by day, trying to make things as normal as possible. And it was normal, for a while.

Until everything broke again.

That night in the abandoned warehouse, when Sam held that gun up to Dean, his expression so completely broken and helpless, tears staining his cheeks, eyes darting back and forth between his older brother and something beside him that didn't really exist. Dean could barely stand to see him like that, mind so shattered that the pieces wouldn't fit back together again, the flames of Hell reflecting in the whites of his eyes, shaking fingers grasping the trigger, not sure whether to point it at the man in front of him or press it against his own skull, blow his brains out. Dean was scared, terrified, of watching that happen right in front of him. But he played the big brother, the savior, and talked Sam off of that ledge, taught him how to deal with the visions, the voices in his head. But Dean wished for any way he could take that lesson back.

After that, Sam was better. There were days where Dean even thought that he could see glimpses of the old Sam, the smart, caring one who had so much potential, but had it snatched away by fate, ripped from his grasp before he was even born. They went on cases, rarely being interrupted by one of Sam's 'episodes'. Sam helped when he was needed in battling the Leviathans. He even started exercising again, or whatever he did when got up at five every morning. Everything was fine. All the problems where pushed under the surface, ignored and forgotten. But they were always there, even if he couldn't see them.

Dean was happy. He was so sure that the Lucifer thing was under wraps, and Sam was on the road to getting better. He was so sure that Sam was fine, that he didn't even question the strange little things that started cropping up, like Sam locking himself in the bathroom for hours at a time, Sam only wearing long sleeved shirts with the sleeves pulled down over his hands, Sam only changing in the bathroom or if Dean was gone. Dean didn't know how he didn't see the signs.

It wasn't until one day, he walked into the motel room they were in for that night, having just interviewed a few families of vics for the case they were on, and found the room empty. Okay, maybe Sam had left to get some food, do some research. But it wasn't until Dean had already stripped out of his monkey suit that he saw that the bathroom light was on. Sam would surely have come out by then if he had heard Dean come in.

It was a loud bang coming from the bathroom that got Dean moving. Within seconds, the door was thrown open and Dean was on his knees wrenching the knife from Sam's fingers. Sam was screaming immediately, struggling against Dean weakly, tears dripping down his face like raindrops. Screaming for Dean to stop, for him to leave him alone, for Lucifer to stop screaming stop screaming stop screaming.

Sam was crazed, sobbing so hard that it shook his whole body, fingers locked so tightly around the hilt of the knife that Dean left fingernail trails on his skin trying to get him to release it. Blood was everywhere, a red sea drowning them both, slick and warm. Sam was doubled over, hair soaked and hanging over his eyes, voice so loud that Dean's ears were ringing with the echoes of his pleas, stop screaming stop screaming stop screaming stop living.

Dean's hands were smeared with red. It painted his vision, painted Sam's skin. The knife was on the floor now, thrown from Dean's grasp when he ripped it from Sam's hold, out of reach. Sam had collapsed against Dean's chest, writhing as he clawed at his ears, at his wrists. Dean had to pin him to the ground and sit on him before he stopped fighting, letting out a final defeated sob as he let his head drop against the ground with a loud _thud!_

Three cuts lined each wrist. Deep and wide, seeping blood onto the stained mats beneath them. Dean fished the first-aid kit from the cabinet and had already cleaned and stitched up the wounds before the situation actually hit him. Suddenly, he could see all blood that splattered the small room, like a murder scene, his limp brother heaped in one corner, eye slits and breaths shallow, red irritated scars covering his bare torso, tally marks counting down the days until he finally broke.

Dean was up and stumbling into the bedroom in seconds, holding down bile and tears, tripping and falling to his hands and knees on the carpet and letting it all out. His couldn't stomach the vision of his on brother lying on the floor, life leaking out of him slowly and painfully, the stench of blood and death stuck in his nose. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve once his stomach was done turning inside out, falling to the side as the pain in his chest became too powerful. Silent tears trailed across his temples, blurring his view of the cracked ceiling. He was frozen with sorrow, overcome with a feeling so new, so indescribable. It was worse than Sam going to hell, than his dad dying, than anything he had ever experienced.

He laid there until he heard Sam moan from the bathroom, jumping up and immediately going into protector mode again. The scene was still a shock, but Dean only focused on helping Sam, wrapping all his wounds and cleaning the blood from his pale skin. He didn't even stop to think when he realized many of Sam's scars were weeks old, healed over and already fading away.

He put a new shirt on Sam, so he wouldn't have to see the lines carved into his brother's skin by his own hands, forced by his own mind. It took a while, but he got him into his bed, covers pulled up to his neck. It almost looked like he was sleeping.

He went out to get more medical supplies, some meds, and some food. He made sure he was only gone for a few minutes, so he could get back before Sam woke up.

So he could make sure he didn't try to kill himself again.

When he got back, he found the room silent, empty except for his younger brother sitting against his head board staring at the wall.

It wasn't long before Dean was at his side and asking questions.

How long?

Since that night. That night in the warehouse when Dean taught him that pain was a good thing.

How bad?

Never enough for Dean to notice.

Why?

To make the voices stop.

To make Lucifer stop screaming stop screaming stop screaming.

The visions never went away. The nightmares never ended. Lucifer was always there, in his head, torturing him, encouraging him, convincing him to end his own life, giving him no other choice. He was always there, whispering in his ear when Dean thought that everything was fine, only managed through self-harm and not looking out for help. Sam thought that it was the best solution. He thought that he was getting better, making it easier on Dean. Of course he was. He was always the one to give up everything he had for the sake of others. But now, instead of saving the world he was trying to save his undeserving older brother by giving his life. Granted, he hadn't thought that it would go that far, but Lucifer had twisted his mind, tricking him into thinking that the pain worked, making him cut deeper each time Lucifer still remained standing there. But it got to be so bad, that Lucifer never went away, and Sam eventually couldn't take it any longer.

The whole event left Dean unsteady for days after, a hole in his chest so deep that he didn't know if he could ever heal from it. His brother tried to kill himself. _His brother tried to kill himself._ He had tried to end his own life, so desperate to escape from the bars of his own mind that he thought that was the only way out. And Dean hadn't even known. He had just sat and watched the last of his brother's sanity withered away and left him a body with no mind.

Sam was gone. Lucifer had taken over his mind and Dean just fucking sat a watched. For months after that, he just watched. He didn't know what else to do. All he was ever taught was to just take what you had and run with it. So Dean just acted like everything was normal. With each passing day, as things got worse and worse, he just acted deliriously normal. The meltdowns, seizures, episodes, psychotic breaks. It was just any old day for him. The longer things progressed, the more he accepted as regular. He was numb. He didn't even know how to react to things anymore. Every day was take care of Sam day. Nothing else. It was shocking to think back to years ago, remember that Sam actually used to be an innocent young man, so smart, so curious, so kind. All of that was stolen, replaced with a blank and broken Sam, a hell-ravaged, mindless, blubbering mess on the floor Sam. Dean couldn't help but cry every time he found some of Sam's old things, books he had dog-eared, papers he had scribbled notes on, his spare set of keys for the Impala. He always threw it all away, enraged over the fact that he could never have his Sammy back, he could never have his brother again.

And now, Dean looks across the room at his brother's bed, watching as the sheets rise and fall slowly, holding his breath as he stares into his brother's cold, empty eyes, once so live and full of wonder, and wonders if he has come this close to mourning the living before.


End file.
